Can't You Understand?
by Dreaming2Escape
Summary: Bella leaves Edward for some unknown reason. Maybe fate has something in store for him when he spots a very familiar face 200 years later. It's been done before, but this is my version. BACK FINALLY. Forget BD ever existed for this stories purpose...
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Twilight or New Moon unfortunately. This plot however, is mine, so don't take it. Aurora and Damien are mine also!

**Prologue**  
Bella's Point of View

_I'm sorry Edward, I really am. I have to though. If I don't, both our lives will be ruined. So please, try not to miss me, because I'll still be around for years to come, I just won't be with you. Who knows, maybe before I die I'll see you one last time. If I don't, let me just tell you this. I love you with all my heart, there is no way I can deny that. I have to leave though so… goodbye._

_--Bella_

I read the note in my hands over and over again. He would read it when he came back from hunting with Emmet and Alice, so I wouldn't be there, but I still know what he will look like when he reads it, and now I feel horrible for doing this to him. After he came back to me and promised never again to leave me, now it's me who is leaving. There is no doubt about it though, in a hundred years or so, he'll have forgotten me. After all, all I am is an ordinary human, not famous for anything. No human like me is ever remembered.

I'm sorry that I have to do this to him, but it is what is best for both of us. If I just disappear, he can go back to living his vampire life and not have to worry about me anymore. Maybe in the end he'll understand or find out why I did this, even though it hurts both of us.

I love Edward, that is why I'm leaving.

**A/N:** Yes, I know, short, but this is only the prologue. The other chapter will be longer for sure. I hope you enjoyed it. Please review!


	2. Chapter One: Back

-1**Disclaimer:** I don't own Twilight or New Moon….

**Chapter One: Back**

Edward's Point of View

Two Hundred Years Later

I hate high school.

Forks High School is one I particularly dislike. Not only is it my third time at this school, it is also linked with old memories that I can't seem to bury, not even after two hundred long years.

Yet somehow, I'm stuck here yet again. This isn't at all fair. But as Bella told me once, life isn't fair. Bella.

It's been about tow hundred years since I last saw Isabella Marie Swan. I suppose she's dead now. Well, I don't suppose, I'm positive she's dead. She was human, not vampire, and therefore she is not immortal like me. Why she left though, is still a mystery to me. I miss her still, and I can't even manage to find her grave so that I can at least say goodbye to her. Everyday I hope that she'll come back, even though I know she won't. Not seeing her makes my dead heart tear into more and more pieces everyday.

"Edward, c'mon!" Alice said, grabbing my arm as the bell rang. "It's time for lunch. What is wrong with you today?" she looked over her shoulder at me as she dragged me from the classroom and outside of the building towards the building that held the cafeteria. Alice knew exactly what was wrong with me, but she wouldn't say it out loud. None of them would. Bella's name was rarely mentioned as an unsaid rule of the family.

"Nothing is wrong Alice." I told my sister. She gave me one of her looks. This one saying she was worried about me, but I ignored it. Alice sighed and looked back forward as we approached the cafeteria building.

She pulled me into the building without a word. "I had a vision." she said finally, quiet enough for only me to hear. I looked up at her as she released my arm and got into the lunch line, to get food we wouldn't eat anyway. I got in line behind her.

"What…?" I asked, trailing off and not finishing my sentence, knowing she knew what I meant. What had she seen and why did she feel the need to tell me she had a vision? It's not like they were uncommon with her. Alice had visions all the time.

Silently, as if contemplating what to tell me, Alice walked slowly in the line, taking the food that was given to her. It was times like these I wished she wasn't so careful to guard her thoughts around me, so I could just go into her mind and see what she saw.

"I saw this cafeteria." she told me as we got off of the line and looked for a table to hold for us and the rest of our family to sit at. I waited for her to go on, but she didn't.

"And?" I asked. There had to be more. She did not tell me that she had a vision just because she saw the cafeteria. She saw something else. Sure enough she smiled mischievously. "Alice." I said, no humor in my voice. The first day back at Forks high school was not a day to play games with me or annoy me.

She shook her head. "You'll see." she said in a singsong voice. With that she walked off to an empty table. I sighed and followed after her, knowing it was no use to try and get her to tell me what she had seen. She was a stubborn person when she wanted to be. I guess I would just have to wait to find out.

I sat at the table across from Alice. Soon we were joined by Rosalie, Jasper, and Emmet. They all had their own conversation, while I stared at my food, bored. After awhile I looked up and around the cafeteria, ignoring the stares and thoughts of others. The school population seemed not to have changed much at all. The thoughts of students were mostly concentrated on homework, studying, weekend plans and other students.

A light breeze blew by, blowing many scents to my sensitive nose. The smells were ordinary, and they hardly bothered me. One smell, though, hit me like a brick wall.

It was Bella's scent. Much duller, but her scent nonetheless. None of my siblings seemed to smell it though. Considering how dull it was to my nose though, it probably seemed like everyone else's scent to them. I looked around, trying to find the origin of the scent. Finally I saw the table that it came from. Sitting there were two people. A boy and….

"Bella." I whispered, though I wasn't even sure I had said it , seeing as no one at my table so much as looked at me. I couldn't see the girl's face, but it had to be Isabella, she had the same hair, dark brown, that fell into her face and hid it from me. Her head was bowed over a book, and one of her hands were at her mouth, she seemed to be biting her nails. Almost immediately after Bella's name left my mouth she looked up at me. I could now see her face, and see it wasn't Bella. She looked very much like Bella, but her eyes and overall facial features weren't Bella's. Her eyes were a very light green flecked with gold, and he cheekbones weren't as prominent as Bella's were.

The girl kept staring at me, and I stared right back, unable to look away. She looked so much like Bella, smelled so much like her. Finally she looked over at the boy next to her, breaking off my need to look at her. The boy next to her looked much like her, I guessed that they were most likely siblings. He had messy brown hair lighter then hers, with a reddish-goldish tint. His eyes were the same as hers. He was taller then her, lanky while she was more slender.

She murmured something almost silently, I couldn't even hear it. But soon the boy's eyes flickered up to me then back down to the table as she continued speak. It annoyed me that I couldn't hear their words, I let down the block in my mind that kept out other's thoughts and attempted to read their thoughts.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. How in the world could that be? I tried again, and still, nothing. It was like there was just a void where the two of them were sitting. There had only been one other time that my talent had not worked, and that had been with Bella.

I looked down at my tray, frustrated. Who in the world were they? The fact that my talent didn't work with them would annoy me to no end, like it had when I couldn't read Bella's thoughts.

"Edward, are you okay?" Alice asked, breaking into my thoughts. I looked up at her, to find that the rest of my siblings were looking at me too. I nodded. I wasn't going to say anything yet about the two strangers whose minds were closed to me.

Alice looked at me, then behind me. "Hello." she said to someone I guess was behind me. I turned to see who stood behind me. It was the boy who I had just previously been looking at. He smiled at all of us. Again I tried my talent on him, and it did not work.

"Hi." he said, smiling brightly. "My sister and I," he gestured back to the table where the girl was still sitting, now watching us, biting her nails. "Just thought that we should warn they're doing blood typing in biology class this afternoon. If any of you have that class this afternoon, I think it would be a good idea you skip it." he said with a nod.

We were all silent. How in the world did he know that we were vampires? I looked around at my siblings, who were looking at him in shock. Finally Jasper said something. "Are you…?" he asked the boy trailing off, though we all knew what he meant. Was the boy a vampire?

The boy smiled mischievously. "Let's just say I'm half of what you are." he said, before turning and going back to the table where his sister sat, sitting next to her and again saying something so quietly to her that I couldn't hear it.

"Is it even possible for someone to be half vampire?" Emmet asked. The rest of us shrugged.

"In theory, it shouldn't be." Alice pointed out. "I mean, vampires can't even have kids with other vampires, and definitely not with other beings."

"Why would he lie though?" Jasper asked. "What possible benefit comes from it?"

Alice shrugged. The question I still had was not answered. Who were those two?

"Excuse me." I said to a girl passing our table. She stopped and was staring at me, not saying a word.

"Oh!" she exclaimed after a second, realizing she had just been staring at me. "I'm sorry, what did you want?" she asked me.

"Could you please tell me who they are?" I asked, nodding at the table where the siblings sat. She looked over at the table, then sighed.

_Of course, he probably just likes Aurora. _ Is what her thoughts were.

"Those are the Swan twins." she said. The last name caught me by surprise, although I probably could've guessed they had something to do with Bella. "The boy is Damien and the girl is Aurora." she continued. "Their cousin Isabella also goes to school here too." she added.

Now that left me speechless. It also did my family, as all of their quiet conversation stopped as the looked at the girl. Isabella? Was it my Bella? It couldn't be, not unless she had been turned into a vampire, but who would turn her. I know it wasn't me, and I'm positive it wasn't my family.

Alice was the first to break out of her shock. "Thank you." she said politely to the girl, a hint for her to leave. The girl took the hint and nodded, turning and leaving.

I looked at Alice for a moment. "Is this the vision you had?" I asked her. Alice nodded a bit.

"Yes." she said, then paused for a moment. "But I saw the girl Aurora walking over, not the boy Damien." she said with a nod. "I wonder why that changed…." she thought out loud, even though it was just some random thought of hers.

"It doesn't matter why it changed." I said. "You have biology next like me, right?" I asked her, getting a nod in reply. "Then maybe we can learn more about them and see if this Isabella is…" I trailed off, having a hard time actually saying the name out loud. "Bella."

**A/N: **Sorry that took so long, I so didn't mean for that to happen! Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter, and the real stuff will begin next chapter. Until then, review!


	3. Chapter Two: What?

-1**Disclaimer**: I don't own anyone 'cept for Rory and Damien!

**A/N: **Finally another chapter!

**Chapter Two: What?**

Bella's Point of View

You know, I miss everything important that usually happens. This is the kind of luck I have, no one else misses everything remotely interesting or startling that happens in Forks. And this time it was really interesting.

"_Vampires?" _I asked Damien once he had explained to me what happened during lunch. He nodded, not looking from where he was, standing behind Aurora, his arms wrapped around her, reading her book over her shoulder. He did not see anything remotely interesting in this news it seemed. I don't know why, didn't he see how odd it was to have another family of vampires in Forks? He might've been oblivious to that fact at the moment though, he was known to let things just fly right over his head like that.

"That's what Rory said they are." he told me with a slight nod, still not looking at me. Aurora turned slightly in his hold to look at me.

"They're like us." she said quietly, pretty much filling up her talking quota for the next five hours or so. Aurora is extremely quiet. She's the type of person who only talks to usually add something of substance to the conversation. She's always been like that. Rather then talk she writes and reads constantly. Even now, after just adding that important information to the conversation, she was already reading again.

Like us? That could mean only one thing. Well, it could mean two, but I highly doubt that Aurora meant that these vampires were only half vampires like she and Damien. What she meant was that they did not drink human blood, they drank animal blood. Which was odd seeing as there were, what, three or four known groups of vampires that did that? Our family, the group in Denali, and… them. It hurt me to think about them. The Cullen family.

But I was almost positive it wasn't the Cullens. They would probably never return to Forks. Or at least, not while we are here. Even though they probably think I'm dead by now, so they would not have any thought that they would encounter me.

Why was I even dwelling on this? I'm never going to see them again; it's no use thinking about it. I looked at Aurora and Damien, standing the same way they had been before, Damien murmuring something quietly into Aurora's ear. I wondered what he was saying, even with my vampire hearing I didn't know, those two were able to talk so quietly that even a vampire's sharp ears couldn't make out the words unless they were meant to be heard. Then I noticed that Aurora still held the book open, even though she did not look at it, while Damien had his eyes trained on the pages. He was reading the book to her.

I smiled slightly. Those two are closer then any other two people I have ever known.

"They're looking for Damien and me." Aurora murmured suddenly. "Two of them."

"The vampires Rory?" Damien asked her, getting a small nod in reply. He grinned. "Then let's go get them!" he said happily. Damien is the complete opposite of Aurora. He is very talkative. He has always been that way. Nothing really gets him angry. Except where Aurora is concerned. If someone was so much as to give her an odd look it would make sense for that person to steer clear of Damien. "Then we can introduce you to them!"

He unwrapped his arms from around Aurora and grabbed her hand. "C'mon Rory!" he exclaimed happily, already pulling her off into the light rain fall and away from the shelter of trees where I still stood. He turned to look back at me. "Stay right there Mom." he told me, then turned back and began to pull is sister off in a random direction.

I smiled slightly as they disappeared into the parking lot.

Damien's POV

I dragged Aurora through the parking lot. She just followed me, not saying a word.

Finally I spotted who we were looking for. Like Rory had said, there were two from the group of five, a girl and a boy. They stood by the edge of the parking lot, by the grass where a group of picnic tables were.

They spotted us and began to walk in our direction. We stopped walking. Well, Rory did, but she still held onto my hand tightly, so I also had to stop in my tracks.

We just stood there as they came to us, stopping a few feet away. They stared at us, and we stared back.

Finally I smiled. "Hello! I don't think I introduced myself at lunch." I said cheerfully. "I'm Damien Swan and this is my twin sister Aurora Swan." I said, gesturing to myself and Rory. I held out my hand to shake each of theirs.

"I'm Alice Cullen and this is my brother Edward." the girl said, introducing both herself and the boy. Both shook my hand, then the girl, Alice, went to shake Aurora's hand.

Aurora stared at Alice's hand for a moment, then backed away and hid behind me, wrapping her arms tightly around my waist. Alice gave her an odd look. "Um, did I do something wrong?" she asked.

I shook my head. "Oh, no. Don't mind Rory, she just isn't one for interacting well with others." I told them cheerfully. The two looked at each other, sharing an expression I didn't really understand.

Just to make this clear, Rory is not crazy or mentally incompetent. She's just… different. In our two hundred years of life, Rory and I have always been in our own little world, one that aurora doesn't seem to know how to interact with people outside of. And we never let anyone into our world. Thus the reason for Aurora's behavior around other people. Rory even has a hard time interacting with our own mother at times.

"Excuse me." the boy, Edward, said. "You said you and your sister were half vampire. How is that even possible?" I have to admit, I was slightly impressed. He wasted no time in getting to the point.

"Simple. Our mother was a human and our father is a vampire." I said with a nod. "That's really all I can explain though. If you wanna know anything else, you'll have to ask our mom about it."

Edward seemed almost frozen with shock. Alice seemed to be excited though, as if something she was waiting for to happen was finally happening. "Your mom?" she asked. "Can we meet her soon?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Actually, she's waiting to meet you right now." I told then. "So yeah, whatever." that was pretty much all I knew to say. I carefully unwrapped my sister's arms from around me. "Just follow us." I said, taking Rory's hand, and heading back across the parking lot, Alice and Edward following behind me.

Edward's POV

Alice and I exchanged looks as we followed Damien and Aurora across the parking lot. It was hard to believe they were related, they acted as complete opposites. And I still had many unanswered questions. Who exactly were their parents? How old were these two. What was their connection to Bella? How in the world was it possible for their mother to still be alive and go to this school?

"She's right over there." Damien said after a few minutes of walking. He pointed to a patch of trees I could see a figure by the trees, but I couldn't make out the distinct features of the person. But as we got closer, I saw who it was. I guess Alice did too, because she let out an excited screech and ran at human speed to the person, wrapping her arms tightly around them.

"Bella!" Alice exclaimed happily.

I could barely keep walking; I was speechless as I reached Bella and Alice.

"Alice? Wh-wh-what are you d-d-doing h-here?" Bella stammered out. She had yet to see me. That was what I was worried about. How would she react when she saw me?

"Mom?" Damien asked. Wait- Bella was his mother? "You know Alice?"

Bella looked over at Damien and opened her mouth to say something, then stopped; now staring at me. "Edward." she whispered after a few moments. Alice let her go, looking between the two of us. Bella said nothing, just kept staring at me. I couldn't find any words either.

How was it possible for Bella to still be alive, and look almost exactly as she had two hundred years ago. Okay, that was and easy question to answer, she was a vampire, but who changed her?

"Bella, I-" I said, and then broke off, not knowing what to say. Bella only stared at me, then suddenly turned and ran off quickly.

"Mom!' Damien exclaimed, looking quickly to me, and then to Bella, who was getting further and further away every second. Only a moment later Damien turned and ran after her. I had to fight the urge to follow. Bella didn't want to see me.

"She's scared." a soft, musical voice said. Both Alice and I turned and looked at Aurora, who had been the one to have spoken. I had forgotten she was there she had been so quiet.

"Scared?" Alice asked. Aurora nodded wordlessly. "Of what?" she asked.

"Edward." Aurora murmured, looking me straight in the eyes. Bella was afraid of me?

"Why?" Alice asked another question. It seemed to be the only way to get Aurora to speak to us, by guiding her.

Aurora stayed silent for a long moment this time. "Because she didn't tell him." she said finally.

"Tell him what?"

"About Damien and I."

"What about you two?"

"That we're," her quiet voice seemed to falter for a moment. "That we're his children."

I was shock. I mean, yes, Bella and I had, well, had sex, but still, we thought it was impossible for her to have children with me.

"So that means you're my… daughter?" I asked, already knowing the answer was yes, I just had to make sure I heard her correctly. Aurora only nodded.

Alice let out a sound I could never hope to describe, but it must've been a good sound because she was smiling widely. "That means I'm an aunt!" she exclaimed, rushing forward, about to hug Aurora.

Aurora flinched away from Alice, and before I could understand, Alice seemed to be thrown back by nothing, landing on the ground on her behind.

"Ouch." Alice said, standing after a moment. "What just happened?"

"I'm sorry." Aurora said. "You came at me too fast, I reacted on instinct." It took me a moment to figure out that she was the reason for Alice's sudden fall.

"You did that?" I asked.

"My gift-- one of them is telekinesis." she said softly, looking down.

This may sound odd, but I think she was ashamed of her talent. But why? It was just an unpreventable part of her being.

Alice looked at Aurora curiously. "One of your gifts? You have another?" she asked. Of course the girl said nothing, only nodded.

"She can read minds." a voice said. We all turned to see Damien approaching, Bella in tow. He held her by the arm so she was unable to run away again.

Bella did everything she could to avoid my eyes. She kept her eyes trained on the ground as she and Damien stopped in front of us.

I felt so guilty. It was my fault she couldn't even look at me. I had promised her she would never be alone, and I somehow let that promise get broken.

"Aurora, can you please tell me why I just had to chase after our mother?" Damien asked his twin. Bella looked up at our children, still careful to avoid my gaze.

Aurora seemed to ignore her brother. "He feels guilty. He tried to find you, but he couldn't. He let the promise get broken and it makes him feel horrible. But he can't understand why you didn't tell him. Did you really think he would get angry? Why--" her voice faltered from the stream of words, and then started again. "He loves you, so, so much. It hurts him that you can't look at him." Aurora fell back into silence. She had been looking at the ground the whole time she spoke, while Bella had been staring at her.

It took me a moment to realize that she was saying all the thoughts I was having, but wasn't voicing. Now I understood why my family hated when I purposely listened to their thoughts. It now felt as if I had no privacy whatsoever.

"Rory--" Damien began, his voice concerned.

"Damien." Aurora cut him off, her voice harsh. She still kept her eyes trained on the ground.

I still stared at Bella; she was trying so hard not to say anything. Seeing her just reminded me of how much I had missed her. She was even more beautiful now then the last time I had saw her.

"Bella." I said, getting her to finally look at me. "You just disappeared. I couldn't find you. All you left me was a note." I stopped. Bella looked as if she were about to cry if it was possible.

"I told Charlie I wanted to move to Jacksonville to live with mom and Phil." It surprised me to hear her finally speak to me. "But I left and didn't tell mom where I was going."

All of this I knew. I had talked to both Charlie and Renee. And neither had known where she had gone after leaving Jacksonville.

Damien was looking between Bella and me, a confused expression on his face. "Mom, what are you talking about?" he asked Bella.

Now there was silence. Bella looked over at our son, opening and closing her mouth a few times before actually saying something. "Uh, Damien, don't you and Aurora have gym right now? Maybe you should get to class." she was avoid the subject for now, that was easy to tell.

"That's not an answer." Damien pointed out, not even thrown off by Bella's not-so-subtle change of subject.

Bella sighed slightly and looked back at me. "Aurora told you already?" she asked. I nodded slightly, knowing exactly what she meant.

Again, she sighed. "Okay." she said, and then turned her gaze back to Damien. "Damien, this is your father, Edward."

**A/N:** And cut! That's it for this update! I'll have the next chapter up as soon as I can, hopefully somewhere within the next two weeks. Until then, review!


	4. Chapter Three: Siblings

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing except for the plot and Aurora and Damien, and a few others to come.

**Chapter Three: Siblings**

Aurora's POV

It's all complicated, that's all I can say. Who I am, where I came from, how I came into existence even. The same for my brother. I've always known more then Damien though, and I've always kept it all from him. If only so I could be sure I at least had _something_ to protect him from. Damien's always the one protecting me, my secrets at least made me feel useful. After all, Damien had always been a bit bitter about who we were, how we were so difference, how we were stuck in our teenage years forever. He had always been bitter that Bella would never tell us verbally where we came from, who our father was. And none of the Volturi would ever say a word about it other then vague verbal hints, while doing their best to keep their minds occupied around me, though every once and awhile someone would slip up, giving me just enough after awhile to piece it all together.

Damien though-- he never knew. Which was why now I was afraid for his reaction to knowing about it now. I'm not sure how to put it, but Damien, when he takes to things badly, he looks for the nearest person he can blame. Even if it's not their fault. He's only human after all, well sort of, and it's a very human way to deal with things. Bella, Aro, Jane, Marcus, Caius, anyone we've been around over the many years we've been alive can handle it. They can handle Damien pushing the blame on them, his yelling. Me? I can't, though I've never really had to. He wouldn't blame me for anything. I was forbidden territory when it came to that.

Though now, I wasn't so sure.

_Rory_. It was his voice practically yelling in my head, no matter how calm it was trying to sound. I looked away. I looked anywhere that wasn't his eyes_. Rory, look at me_! It was there, just pounding at my head. I never could block his voice out, no matter how hard I tried. Anyone else, I could at least some few times make their minds closed books to me. Just not Damien. And especially not if he was angry. Though he looked more in shock if you were watching him standing there. Portraying the look he knew everyone expected. Two hundred years gave you a lot of practice with covering things up when you didn't want people seeing your real emotions. Damien was angry on the inside, angry and confused.

I couldn't look at him though. No, because I would be able to see hurt in his eyes, and to be honest, I didn't want to see it. _You knew, didn't you Rory? You knew for years, and you never said a word to me! _I closed my eyes. Couldn't he just leave it alone?

"Aurora, I can't believe you!" he actually spoke aloud this time, shouting at me. The three older vampires around us jumped, I stayed stone still, just wishing that one my abilities was to disappear. "How long Rory? How long did you know?" I shook my head at the question. No, I couldn't even get any words out. Just a few moments ago he had been worried about a trance-like state of making Edward and Bella face each other, now, he was angry with me. Had so much really changed in just a few minutes?

Bella stepped between us, looking at Damien, though, being as small as she was, something I took after her in, she had to look up at my lanky brother who stood at six feet three inches. "Damien, don't you go getting angry at your sister. You know she can't control what she catches in her mind." She was standing 

up for me, thinking of only the fact that a fight with Damien would make me more reluctant to speak, to interact with others.

Her attempt to derail this didn't work though. "No secrets Aurora! You said that yourself!"

"I was trying to protect you!" that was all I could manage to get out, and that stopped Damien for a moment. He wasn't sure how to react to that, to the thought of me, little 4''11 fragile Aurora, trying to protect him, my tall, strong, brother.

He finally made up his mind on how to react though, and it involved pushing past Bella and I and leaving, not looking back. _You have a fucking weird way of protecting me. _Was the only thought I got yelled back at me. I closed my eyes again, trying to numb myself of that shaken feeling I had. I felt a hand touch my shoulder and I jumped away, opening my eyes to a curious looking Alice, watching me carefully; they all were, Alice was just the one standing closest to me. Bella may have murmured out a warning to her about being so close to me, but I wasn't there enough to actually hear it.

"Your future is so blurry." Alice murmured, and I could see flashes of it in my head. Wonderful. A fortuneteller, just what I wanted to be around. "It's there, but somewhere along the way it starts dropping off the map for such long periods of time." she was looking for my reaction to this, as if I would know the reason why. The future was ever changing, how was I supposed to know what choices I made that made what would happen to me so unclear in her inner eye?

Edward moved to step forward, but Bella put her arm out to stop him. "Don't go near her Edward." she said. She was trying to protect me, I could hear it in her thoughts. "If you hadn't showed up, this wouldn't have happened."

"What Bella? They wouldn't have gotten into a fight?" They were absorbed into their own conversation now, arguing while Alice still watched me. "They're brother and sister. Siblings fight, Bella. She's my daughter too."

"You barely know her! You barely know Damien! They _don't _fight Edward, ever. They never have." she had a point there. The closest Damien and I had ever gotten in a fight was ending up in a tickle fight. Why that was, I really wasn't sure, but it felt weird to know how aware of us and our relationship Bella had been over the years. I never really thought of her as watching us so much after we had stopped ageing it seemed at seventeen.

"I barely know them because you never gave me a chance to!" Edward was trying to keep calm. I could here it in his mind, I could hear him telling himself that he couldn't raise his voice to Bella, that he needed to understand why she did what she did, and not get angry. He was getting angry though. It was bubbling in the back of his mind, thoughts he probably wasn't even aware he was having.

I covered my ears and closed my eyes. I just wanted them _to stop._ They were practically screaming at each other in their heads, even if they didn't mean to. "Um, you guys." I heard Alice say aloud. She was probably still in front of me, gazing at me. "Guysss." she dragged out the word a few moments later, while Edward and Bella continued their bickering. I don't think they even know that they were doing it, that arguing that only two people who were still in love could do.

"Guys!" Alice said sharply now, tired of them both not listening to her.

"What?" they both asked irritably, looking at her I suppose. I don't know whether she gestured to me to point out that they were causing me a headache with all of their arguing, or if they just figured it out themselves, but almost instantly the yelling in their minds eased up greatly.

_Didn't anyone ever help you learn to block out others thoughts?_

These were Edward's words, gentle and quiet. I slid my hands from ears slowly and opened my eyes to look at him, shaking my head slowly. Bella looked between us, figuring out with ease that this was a strictly non-verbal conversation. She sighed, but held her hands up in the air. "I give up. Talk to her Edward. Talk to her all you want. You're right, she's your daughter too. I-- I need to go think or something." she said quietly, reaching out to touch my shoulder and give it a squeeze before she disappeared in that blink of a human eye, one of those limitations I had as only half vampires could, Alice disappeared with her.

It was Edward and I alone now, and I wasn't exactly sure how to handle that.

Edward's POV

Aurora crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself while she looked up at me. She didn't look sad really… more cautious then anything. She was so small, not more then an inch or so taller then Alice, and she seemed as if she would break much more easily then Alice ever could. This was probably true I guess, if being half human gave her limitations that compromised the indestructibility a vampire had.

"So, you knew who I was the whole time? Since before we showed up?" I asked her slowly, keeping my distance so that I wouldn't scare her.

She shrugged. "I found your name when I was fourteen." she said quietly. "Someone slipped up in their mind."

_Who_? I asked myself in my own mind, though I guess it sounded like a non-verbal question for her.

"Bella doesn't want you to know that." she said quickly, as if that was the end of the subject. "I figured out who you were to her when I was seventeen." she added after a moment, trying to skip over the fact that I wanted to know who had known about this while I hadn't. Who on earth had found Bella when she had left? Or who did she go to?

Aurora's mind was wandering just like mine was, I could see it in the eyes that glazed over as she stared at the ground. It was a look so similar to Bella's, it was a bit hard to look at. This… this was my daughter. That shouldn't even be possible. Of course, humans and vampires together shouldn't have been possible either, and that was what had gotten us here in the first place I suppose.

"Damien… isn't always like that." she said softly, crouching down under one of the trees, picking a daisy and twirling it in her fingers absently.

"He seemed angry." I said bluntly, watching her as she examined the daisy so carefully. Aurora shook her head as if to say I was wrong, that I had the wrong impression of her brother, my son.

"It's just he…" she trailed off, her eyes searching the daisy for the words she wasn't saying. I got the feeling that she wasn't used to saying so much, that she felt like she was revealing too much of herself. "Every few decades, he tries to find out where we came from. He's hurt that I've known the whole time and never said anything."

She was defending him. Because he was her brother. I didn't need to read her mind to know that.

I guess it was important to her that I knew that. She looked up at me now, her gaze hard, her jaw set stubbornly. To tell the truth, I suppose I would do just the same for my family, and we didn't have the added part of having blood relations. Granted, vampires don't actually have blood, but that isn't the point. "My brother loves me." she insisted, her eyes holding onto mine for another moment before she turned her eyes away once more, this time to the tree next to her, her free hand reaching out and touching the rough bark. Her words sounded like she was trying to convince not just me, but also herself. It was so frustrating to have to take guesses at what her words completely meant, instead of not just being able to see what her mind was saying through this all.

"It's more frustrating when you can't get rid of people's thoughts in your mind." she said, standing up now from her crouching position. I was taken aback, surprised she was getting every thought in my head. It was an odd feeling. "I can't stop it, and I don't want to hear it anymore." she said slowly, backing away now. As she got farther away, she turned her back to me, continuing to walk.

"Wait!" I called, starting after her, but stopping as I remembered what she had done when Alice had tried to hug me. This was not the time to see if she would do the same to me. Besides, there was no doubt I would be seeing her again soon.

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**A/N: **Wow, after almost a year, I've finally got an update . Life kinda got crazy and I completely forgot about this. But this fan fiction is officially back now! Hopefully the next chapter will be here soon, I've already started on it!


	5. Chapter Four: Sorry

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing except for this plot and the twins plus some characters to come!

**Chapter Four: Sorry**

Jasper's POV

The reason I was in the parking lot where Alice could find me so easily? English class. Or more, the moment I had seen that the desks in English class were set up in a circle-- no doubt the teacher's attempt at making discussion more fun --I had turned right around in the doorway and left to wonder the campus. Forks High School hadn't changed very much since we've been gone, and that wasn't much of a surprise. Small town, what could you expect from it?

In the parking lot, Alice practically ran into me. "Jasper!" she exclaimed, a wide smile on her face. I could feel excitement radiating from her. Of course, even without my ability it would've been plain to see she was excited. She was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet and as I said, she had a wide smile on her face, a look of anticipation. She gripped at my forearms, and stopped bouncing after a moment.

"I don't know why I didn't see it! I mean, Edward had me watching her future so carefully. Maybe they…" she trailed off into her own thoughts without explaining out loud to me. Alice did this so often, sometimes I think it's from being around from Edward a little too much.

"Alice." I said patiently, waiting for her to tell me what had such excitement running through her body.

"Sorry Jasper, it's--" this time she cut herself off, looking over my shoulder. Now her excitement was dying down a bit, and a strong disappointment was washing over her. What? I turned to see what was causing her such a feeling. The only other person in parking lot was the male from earlier; Damien Swan was what the girl had said his name was. He had his back to us, his hands in his pockets. I had no idea what he was doing, but he wasn't moving. "C'mon Jasper." she said, pulling me by the arm towards him.

As we got closer to him, Alice reached out and touched his shoulder, speaking quietly. "Damien."

He turned on her, baring his teeth and letting a growl ripple out.

What happened next was pure instinct. I suppose I should've just calmed his anger; that it didn't need to escalate to a standoff. But that growl had been a threat. A threat to Alice, which I wouldn't stand. Without a second thought in that moment, I moved in front of Alice, into a defensive stance, letting my own snarl out.

Neither of us moved, Damien did not retract from his position, and I wouldn't. I doubted he was a real danger, but I wouldn't take chances. Not when Alice was involved. I know she can hold her own, but sometimes I couldn't help but be protective of her. "Jasper… its okay, stop it." she said gently, putting a hand on my shoulder. I shook my head.

"He'll attack, Alice. He's angry."

"Yes, he's angry, but not _at us_, Jasper. We only surprised him. He's angry with--"

Again she was cut off, but not by herself this time. "Damien." another, softer, voice said. The other-- Aurora --appeared behind him. "Damien, stop. You have no reason to fight." she was so calm, not just in 

her voice, but in her actual emotions. She wasn't trying to mask anything. She reached out and took a hold of Damien's arm. Damien let out another growl, shaking her off. Aurora stumbled backwards and fell back onto the ground.

There was a pause of silence. Damien didn't let up. I had to though, because the feeling of hurt that Aurora was now feeling was overwhelming and was washing over me. I would've calmed her, if I could've stopped shaking. "Jasper?" Alice asked, moving closer. I nodded, not looking away from Aurora on the ground. Her hurt was easing away a bit, to be replaced by a strong need for rebellion. That one I could control, but something told me not to try to calm Aurora.

She stared at the back of still-attack ready Damien for a moment, before clenching her eyes shut. The next thing that happened completely surprised me, because I certainly wasn't expecting Damien to go flying back with no reason, landing on the ground next to Aurora. It was then she opened her eyes and looked at him, silent. After another long moment passed before her lips began to move slowly, whether she was actually speaking or not, I couldn't tell, but if she was, she was talking with an amazing ability to hide her words from vampire ears.

The faster her lips went, the darker Damien's face got. Finally, her lips stopped moving. Now I could feel fear and sadness coming from her. For that, I sent out a wave of calm to her. She looked up at me in surprise, and I smiled slightly at her right before she averted her gaze. "This can't be fixed right away, Rory. Just… leave me alone for now." Damien said finally, standing up and walking away, towards a car. We all watched him get in, before Alice and I turned back to Aurora.

She slammed her hands on the ground, clenching her eyes shut for a long moment. At first I thought something else would go flying, but not this time. When she her eyes, she slammed her fists hard on the ground, sending pieces of ground flying as she made clear holes in the tar. I guess that mean that if they really were half human, it didn't stop the vampire strength, or at least, not by much. Aurora stood then, nodding at Alice and I murmuring something quickly that I didn't pay much attention to, since she was gone before I could process it.

I turned to look at Alice, raising an eyebrow. "Did you and Edward find anything out about those two?" I asked her.

Now, for some reason I could not understand, the concern she had been feeling turned back to excitement. "I guess, you could say that what just happened was your first interaction with your niece and nephew." she said with a shrug.

Damien's POV

_That __**hurt**__, Damien. You can't stay angry with me forever. And you certainly can't start throwing me around Damien. I told you I was trying to protect you. I didn't want to see you get hurt finding out that Bella never told Edward about us, that she was the one who walked away from all of this. I don't regret the choice, but I'm sorry that I hurt you. Okay? It's better now, okay?_

I sighed, pushing my foot down harder on the gas pedal, speeding up, the speedometer hitting and even ninety as I sped down the highway that the high school was just off of. Aurora didn't get it. Because she hadn't been betrayed. No matter how much I had ever attempted to protect her, I had **never **keptanything from her. I knew it would hurt her if she ever saw any secrets in my thought. And I had always 

thought she would never keep anything from me. If anything, it wouldn't be something as big as this at least.

The first time that I remember asking about my father, I had been eight. Aurora and I had been eating pizza, our dinner for that day in place of blood, which we only really need to have every two weeks before it became dangerous for us to be around humans. Aurora had whispered the only small fact about our father that she ever shared with me then. That our eating pizza reminded our mother of him for some reason.

And that was the first time I didn't contain the urge to ask about this part of my origin. "Did our dad like pizza?" I asked our mother. She, who had been having a quiet conversation with Aro, fell silent. She swallowed, even though she was eating nothing, and looked down.

"You know your father was a vampire; he didn't eat human food like you two do." she said quietly.

"Then why does Rory and I eating pizza remind you of him?" I asked. This was also the first time I pushed things. That was the most mom had ever given us about him, even if it was information that was already obvious to us.

"You ask too many questions, child. Finish your food." Aro said swiftly after a moment of silence, ending the subject. While he still had his always pleasant smile on his face, it was obvious that was the final word on the subject. I wasn't like Aurora, who, though she barely spoke, she refused to be told to leave

something alone when she had a question. Aro didn't scare her, Jane and Alec didn't scare her, Marcus and Caius didn't scare her. If Rory has something to say, she's not going to listen to anyone when they tell her to be quiet. When you talk as little as she does, it's important to get what you want to say out.

So, being unlike Aurora, I close my mouth and looked down at the pizza. Even if I had been like Aurora that one time, it wouldn't have played on in the same way it would have for her. No one would be willing to have a standoff with me; no one would treat me as if I were anything special or someone to be humored_. I_ would've gotten into trouble.

Aurora was the special one, and she still is. Her talents seem to have so much potential and that always interested Aro. Aurora was always treated specially when came to the Volturi. Our mother loved us both equally at least. I'm not a miracle to anyone other than her though. Aurora's strong; she was always smart, with the need to only see anything once to have the information in her mind forever. She had her mind reading talent, _with_ telekinesis. When we were first growing up, it was always endless testing with her on those.

How did they occupy and look after me? I run faster than any known vampire can, and I will always know when you lie to me. I won't see the truth, but I'll call you on your lie. I can learn like Rory can, faster then she can also. So mostly I sat in the library, going through the thousands of books, rattling off the information I learned later on, though it would never be as impressive as quiet, powerful Aurora.

What I always had that Aurora didn't though, was information about where we came from. I had found out that our mother was from Phoenix, Arizona. From there I just searched. I actually met my grandmother, though she didn't know I was her grandson. I had already been in my twenties then, even if I looked to be in my teens. Renee Dwyer, formally Renee Swan. My Grandmother who thought I was a child of an Italian woman who had died recently and that I was looking to find out more about a friend 

she had talked so much about: Isabella Swan. Renee had been in her sixties, all she could tell was that Bella had lived with her for a few months after leaving Forks, and then she left, saying she would write, which she had for awhile, before the letters stopped. I had asked her if Bella had had a boyfriend, and she had told me yes, one that had really cared for her, and loved her until they broke up. Renee couldn't remember his name.

Aurora, she knew it though. And she didn't tell me. She took the only thing I had, the little knowledge I could say I found myself, and put it out with what she had. I guess you could say that I'm more jealous of her then anything, that that's why I yelled at her, threw her back, told her to leave me alone.

She betrayed me; I wasn't going to feel sorry for hurting her.

I was cooling down though, my foot easing up on the gas pedal as I drove more local streets, towards where I lived with Aurora and my mother. The house that apparent used to belong to my grandfather. I would stay there until they came home, and maybe I could have a reasonable conversation with my sister without hurting her more.

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**A/N:** Yay, that's another chapter, and it does give more information on where Bella ended up after she left Edward, doesn't it? There will be more of an explanation as to why in later chapters, the next chapter will mostly be about the Cullens, there won't be much to do with the twins and Bella. Review though! It makes me work faster!


	6. Chapter Five: Plans

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything that obvious belongs to Stephanie Meyer.

**Chapter Five: Plans**

Edward's POV

"What do you mean, you just let her leave Edward?" Rosalie asked me in a shrill voice as I drove, my eyes for once fully concentrating on the road, even though I didn't need to. "You're never going to see her again now, I hope you know. She'll do just what you did when she first came to Forks, and leave with those two 'half' vampires." I really had to be mistaken in what I heard in her voice, because it sounded like she actually cared about what happened.

"That's a possibility." I said calmly, my eyes not leaving the road.

"I would see if she decided to leave." Alice said, her voice full of certainty. Her thoughts weren't saying the same thing with such force though.

Rosalie snorted. "Because you did so well seeing it the last time she decided to leave."

Alice ignored her, though she called Rosalie a few rude names in her mind for bringing that up. "Besides, Edward came back that time he left, didn't he? He can't stay away from Bella, and Bella can't stay away from him. Even if she did leave, she would come back." she continued. Now there was a point. I hadn't been able to stay away, both times I had left.

"But she stayed away for two hundred years." Emmet pointed out now. _Sorry man._ He apologized to me wordlessly. I nodded my head a fraction of an inch at the apology, all he was doing was making a point. "What's to say she can't do that again?" As much as I hated to admit it, my brother was right. I gripped the wheel a bit tighter and sped up more. I don't think anyone noticed other then Jasper, who always noticed when someone's mood went on edge.

"That was because she was _scared_, Emmet. She thought she was doing good for their kids and Edward." Alice insisted. She wasn't even sure if any of what she was saying was true, but that was what she felt was pretty close to the truth.

There was a laugh, this from Rosalie. "Oh yes, and then there's _them_." she said bitterly. I at least knew why this was. She was bitter because if this was true, which I had no doubt that it was, then Bella had what she couldn't along with something Rosalie had never wanted, and I did too now. Children, and a lifetime that would last for an eternity. "How do you know she's even tell the truth? We all know that there is no such thing as half vampires, she probably cheated on you Edward. I hate to be the one to point it out, but it's the only possibility." she crossed her arms over her chest as my eyes found hers in the rearview mirror.

She was lying; she didn't feel bad by pointing that out. She felt smug. She had always been sure Bella would betray me, and this was the proof she had to back up what she had always said.

That I wouldn't believe. Bella was telling the truth; Aurora was telling the truth. There was no place you could hide in your mind. If Aurora could read Bella's mind, like I suspected she could, then there was no way Bella could hide the lie saying that I was the father to the twins. Especially not when you got caught off guard like she had.

"Shut up, Rosalie." Alice beat me to the punch with making Rose get off of it. "What would Bella get from lying? And those two obviously have vampire _and_ human attributes, where else can it come from Rose?"

Now Rosalie fell silent, glaring at the back of the passenger seat where Alice sat. I smiled slightly to myself. At least Alice was with me in the hope that Bella wouldn't disappear again. Emmet wanted to see her also, though he wasn't as sure of her staying. Jasper was on the wall. Rosalie was making her feelings quite obvious for everyone. She didn't want Bella back in our lives at all. She wanted nothing more then to pretend she had not just again become a part of our lives.

"They're my son and daughter." I informed Rosalie in an even voice. "I don't know how it happened but it did. And now we're going to have to figure this all out, starting tonight."

"Do **not** bring me into this, Edward Cullen. I'm not helping you figure anything out."

I grimaced, speeding up once more. We were almost back to the house.

"I wasn't planning on it, Rosalie Hale." I told her in a sarcastic tone.

Alice's POV

I peered at Edward as he stayed behind the wheel of the car, even as we all got out. He didn't even seem to mind that I was leaning into his window, staring at him.

_I really do think they'll stay, Edward_. I thought for him to hear. He smiled and shook his head a bit, but then nodded.

"She wasn't happy to see me."

"She was shocked." I insisted. I couldn't let him think she was leaving again. I didn't want to see my brother become like he had when Bella had first left, when he couldn't find her after months of looking. Bella couldn't leave again. I was going to watch her future, I would see if she made the choice to leave. I wouldn't miss it like I had last time. That couldn't happen again.

Missing Bella's first decision had been a major blow to me. And after that, I still had been unable to catch some glimpse of what she had been planning where she was going. Edward had made me feel guilty about it, even when he was telling me it wasn't my fault. It was just the dead look on his face, it was obvious that life without Bella was killing him emotionally. The only reason he wasn't attempting to kill himself this time was the only way he could think of doing it was to go to the Volturi, and he didn't want them to put any thought into finding Bella themselves. They would've killed her, there was no real doubt for that.

Everyone was inside now, and Esme was standing on the porch, watching Edward and I as we remained with the car, wordless.

Edward sighed, opening the door without warning me. I jumped away, beginning my own walk towards the house at human pace, even though there was no human around. Edward was moving slower then I was though, and really, I just didn't want to leave him alone too much, I was afraid of what he would do, afraid that if I gave him even two seconds, he would get some crazy idea and run off. It had been almost a year before I had seen him after Bella had left. He couldn't run away from anything this time.

Edward's POV

Alice was keeping an eye on me. This was kind of obvious, from how carefully she watched me, even as we entered the house, Esme following us inside, asking questions of how our day was.

"Bella was there!" Alice told our adoptive mother excitedly. That was just like Alice. She really couldn't keep anything quiet, though I couldn't blame her. She said nothing else though, nothing about Aurora and Damien_. That's for you to tell_. She called out in her mind, looking at me. I couldn't help but smile at her vaguely. Somehow I thought Alice was taking to the news of me having children much easier then I was.

"Bella…?" Esme asked softly, trailing off, looking at me. "That shouldn't be possible, is she…?"

Esme didn't need to finish the question for me to know what she was talking about. "She is, I don't know who changed her though." I cut off that question before it was asked. No, I did not know who had changed Bella, but I had every intention to find out who had… eventually. Somehow, I was fairly sure she wouldn't answer that question willingly. If she has stayed herself in anyway, she will still be stubborn Bella.

_Edward, tell her about Damien and Aurora_! Alice whined in my head. I looked at her and she made a face, telling me that if I waited much longer, she would explode.

I rolled my eyes at her over dramatics and looked back at Esme, who was now watching me through worried eyes. "There were two others." I said, before she could start asking me motherly questions. Had I talked to her? What happened? Was I okay? "Twins. Damien and Aurora." I looked down at the ground. Esme was confused, wonder why I was adding this on to instead of talking more about Bella. "They're… half human."

Now Esme's mind was a blank. She wasn't sure what I was getting at, and what I meant by half human. "Mom, I have a son and daughter." I explained.

Silence followed for a long few minutes while Esme processed my words. Then she smiled, walking forward and putting her arms around me. "You're very lucky Edward, I'm happy for you."

That was Esme's reaction, and it was perfectly accepted. Esme hardly questioned anything that we said or put in front of her. She didn't believe we would lie to her, and usually we don't. And now, I could see in her mind, she had so much pride in me, she was so happy. Esme was right, I was lucky, since I wasn't supposed to have this chance at all. Of course, there was nothing saying that I would get to know my two children.

"Esme, can Edward and I be excused? I wanna talk to him." Alice said patiently, pulling me from her hug.

Esme nodded, letting me go, still smiling so much like a happy mother. "Of course. Just wait until Carlisle hears this news Edward." she said_. He'll be so proud for you, just like I am_. She assured wordlessly. I smiled back at her, even as I followed Alice as she sped us upstairs, to my room. I couldn't tell Esme there was nothing to be proud of yet, that this could all end without any warning.

"Edward, Edward, would you listen to me?" Alice said, chiding me both out loud and in my head.

"What Alice?" I asked, looking down at her.

"We need to find out where they're living tonight." she insisted. "So you can go talk to them now. It's too easy for them to avoid you at school." she was ticking off places she thought were possible for them to be living on her fingers, places we had looked into being free or not when we had come back to Forks, all secluded from town mostly.

I sighed, shaking my head. No, Bella wouldn't look for secluded. Bella liked familiar. "She's living in her old house." I told my sister, raking a hand through my hair.

Alice looked up in surprise that I had said something, then her eyebrows knitted together. "How do you know that her old house is still around?"

How did I know? I had looked it up. To see if it had been knocked down, to see if I would be able to go there at least one more time. I didn't know if anyone was living there, that hadn't mattered to me. "It's still there, Alice. And she'll be there."

"Well then." Alice smiled, one of her devilish grins. "Are we going or not, Edward? You know Emmet will want to come, and Jasper will come." she tapped her nose in thought. "I'm not sure Rosalie will want to come though." she murmured.

"That's okay." I said, walking across the room the shelves the lined my wall with CDs. I carefully picked the one that was at the beginning of the highest shelf out, looking at it. It was plain case, with a plain CD in it. There was no label on the CD, but I knew the single song it contained. Bella had a more decorated CD with the same song, or she used to at least, who knew what happened to it. I had never found it, that was a sure thing.

Why had I kept this CD all this time? It wasn't like I didn't have it burned into my mind, the melody, the notes. I had mostly kept it because that was a physical thing I had of Bella, even if she had never touched, nor probably seen it. That and the letter she had left me when she had gone.

I turned back to Alice, though I was still staring at the CD case in my hand. "No one said I was inviting Rosalie along."

Alice was nearly jumping up and down. "Alright! I need to go get ready for this!" She exclaimed, disappearing from my room.

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**A/N**: That be it. Kinda a boring chapter really, but the next one shall be a fun interesting one. This weekend maybe it'll be up? I make no promises, I gots portfolio work that becomes this, but it will be up soon. Review, please and thank you!


	7. Chapter Six: Buttercups

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Twilight Series; only this plot and Rory, Damien, and a few others.

**Chapter Six: Buttercups **

Bella's POV

Damien had taken the car, which was my normal way home. I was actually surprised to find Aurora waiting for me by her bike, leaning against it, her hands stuffed into her sweater pockets, and she was staring at the ground. "You need a ride Bella?" she questioned without looking up as I appeared in front of her. Aurora had never called me 'mom' or 'mother' or anything acknowledging that I was her mother. She barely treated me like I was her mother, but then again, neither then Damien, though he did call me 'mom'.

"A ride would be nice." I said with a smile at my short daughter. She had unfortunately gotten stuck with my short genes and end up even smaller than me. Aurora looked up, letting a small smile slip onto her face. She nodded, pushing away from the bike and picking up the helmet that rested on the seat. Part of the reason she wore it was to keep up appearances, the other part was that with her half human heritage, we weren't sure how much impact it would take to actually hurt her, and if falling off of a speeding motorcycle could cause that harm.

She fit it over her head, lifting the visor so I could see her eyes clearly. As she pulled the keys out of her pocket and got onto the bike, she gestured for me to get on behind her. "Hold on." she said in her quiet voice as she revved up the motor and kicked off the stand.

If there was something that neither of my children got from me, it was their speeding. That was an Edward trait if I ever saw one. It almost hurt sometimes, looking at all the speeding that so often caused me to snap at Edward. Aurora sped more often and went much more over the speed limits, which usually made it easier to ignore, since she hardly ever drove with Damien or I. She took her motorcycle to school while we drove in the car, Damien jokingly call the ten minute ride Aurora's 'get away from noise' time. He probably had the right idea in that.

Aurora's love for her motorcycle? Me. Once she had been old enough to comprehend the idea of a motorcycle and riding one, she had been more eager to ride on one then to get into a car any day. Confiding. That was what she had called sitting strapped into a car once. I had to admit, she was right. I hardly ever road on a motorcycle after awhile, but I would always remember how different it felt, riding exposed to the world around you.

As I said, Aurora speeds at sometime unimaginable numbers, and so we were home in no time. She cut off the engine and got off of the bike, and I followed behind her. Now her shoulders were tense, looking at Damien sitting on our porch, holding a buttercup up in front of his face, as if examining the yellow flower. Buttercups are Aurora's favorite flower. There were very high odds that Damien had even gotten the flower he was holding from Aurora's garden. That garden that was in our backyard, that took up half of the backyard really. Aurora grew all kinds of flowers there, laughing when Damien tried to be helpful, even though it usually ended up with Aurora swatting his hands away from whatever he was trying to do.

If anything was clear, Damien was trying to say he was sorry-- or something like that. Of course, Damien had, and still does have stubbornness that could rival Edward's and mine put together sometimes. He rarely apologized for anything, even to his sister.

Aurora kept moving forward, her steps only faltering once or twice. She took the flower when Damien held it out, and tucked it into her hair, pushing back stray locks. I stood back as I watch the two of them, both standing now, silent, or seemingly silent. Damien's lips were moving, and no matter how soundless his words seemed to be, they were there. Aurora looked down-- a move she pulled so often --and crossed her arms over her chest as she listened to her brother. Damien's eyes were soft as he studied his twin's stance. It wasn't the same calculating look he had when he looked over anyone else, the one that made him more intimidating and unnerving.

I got so lost in my thoughts that I missed Aurora walking inside. "Mom." Damien said sharply, as if he had said it before and I hadn't reacted. I shook my head slightly and focused on my son, surprised to find him right in front of me now. "You need to explain this to me, because I don't get it. From what Aurora said, it looks like you left in the beginning just because you were pregnant."

I hated when Damien did this, talked to me like I was acting unreasonable. Or in this case, like I had acted unreasonable. Most children didn't talk to their parents that way, except for my children of course. I sighed and walked past him to the porch and sat on the steps, gesturing for him to sit next to me. It was starting to drizzle from the dark clouds in the sky, and I just wanted to finish this quickly.

"Damien, it's complicated. When I was a human, I was a liability to Edward." he opened his mouth to speak, but I held my hand up, halting his words. "That's where this needs to start kiddo. I met Edward a little more than a year before I had you two. He tried to stay away from me, but my scent lured him in. We fell in love. The thing is, vampires and humans aren't meant to mix.

"I put Edward-- all of the Cullens really --in the way of danger more than once." I sighed. I didn't like telling this story, no matter how much I was condensing it. "They did so much to protect me, but my getting pregnant; Damien, you have to understand, I was afraid. I ran away for selfish reasons, because I was afraid that Edward would leave me, I was afraid of what would happen if more danger came and someone did something stupid and got hurt just because I was even _more _fragile during my pregnancy." That was all I had to say, all I could really tell him without it starting to ache. Cliché, I know, but that was what happened when I thought about my past for too long.

There was a moment of silence before Damien said anything. "And you ended up with what is the vampire equivalent of royalty how?" he questioned. Of course he couldn't leave it alone. He wouldn't be Damien if he did. "Mom, are you going to answer me? We all know there is no way you just stumbled into Italy and into the laps of the Volturi."

I sighed; this was something I wasn't up for, and I told my child as much. "Damien, it's a long story that I really can't tell you right now."

He stared at me, but nodded. "Aurora's making cookies. I'm going to go bother her until she lets me lick the spoon." he said, standing and flashing a smile at me before he walked inside. I took a deep, unneeded breath once he was gone, pushing my hair from my face. Once my head was cleared of all that, the conversation, the thoughts of my past, all of it, I stood also and slowly walked inside.

Damien's POV

"Mm, white chocolate chip cookies." I said cheerfully, walking up behind my sister as she mixed the batter in the mixing bowl. Leaning over her shoulder, I dipped my finger into the batter, and brought it up to my mouth. Sure, you were supposed to eat uncooked cookie dough, but who really ever followed that rule? Going back to dip my finger in again, Aurora hit my hand lightly with the long wooden spoon in her hand.

"That's disgusting Damien. I don't want you sticking your hands in the cookie dough, we will be eating these later." she said, going back to stirring. Yes, we would be eating them later. The good part about having a mother who couldn't cook once she had lost her taste for real food was that we had complete control over what we ate. The fun part was that we both had sweet tooth and combined with Aurora's baking, we usually got away with eating baked goods instead of 'real' food. Sure, there were some healthy things in our diet… but that was mostly on the vampire side. We both had our own healthy appetites for blood, which we could keep under control as long as we feed at least every two weeks. The longer we waited though, the harder it was to be around the rest of the world, which was why we usually feed every week instead of waiting.

I laughed at my sister. No matter how angry I had been at her, or the fact that I still felt a little betrayed, which I knew she could clearly see in my head, things were better. She didn't stiffen when I touched her now, wrapped one arm around her small waist and propped my chin on top of her head. "But the cookie dough is yummy, see?" this time I did get to dip my finger in it, and instead of bringing it to my mouth or Rory's, I brushed it onto Rory's nose, causing my sister to let out a squeak of protest, twisting away from me. "What, you don't like it Aurora?" I asked through my laughter.

"I swear, D.A., if I didn't want cookies, I would dump this whole mixing bowl over your head." she said with her own quiet musical laugher, using her nickname for me, D.A. That would be my first and middle initials, my name being Damien Anthony. Aurora was Aurora Elizabeth. Where our middle names came from I wasn't sure. Our first names came from our mother opening a baby name book and pointing to a random name, but she had always said our middle names stood for something. Would she tell us what? Of course not.

"But you want cookies." I said in a sing song voice. Her arm moved back to elbow me in the stomach hard, and if I didn't have almost the same indestructibility as a full vampire, it probably would've really hurt, instead of just sounding like two baseball bats crashing together. This was the Aurora I like being around. I only got this Aurora when we were alone without anyone around and walking in on us. The minute our mother walked in, Rory would be back to her quiet self, still just as playful, but much more subtle and less open with what she said and let slip out.

Aurora rolled her eyes. "I just said that." she murmured, pulling away from me as she walked to the oven, with a cookie sheet sitting atop it. Carefully, she distributed the dough each into a small pile that would flatten into a cookie. Now she handed over the spoon and the bowl with leftovers, and picked up a dish towel to wipe off her nose.

I cheered in victory at obtaining the spoon and bowl, licking the spoon happily as Aurora put the cookies in the oven. That was when footsteps sounded, meaning someone had come into the room. I turned to smile at our mother, who was further in the room then I had expected. She had to have been standing in the doorway, listening to Rory and I be silly. I grinned at her, despite our prior conversation and her avoidance of the question I had asked. She and Rory really didn't need me to be an ass to them, especially more than once in a day. This would not be the last day I acted like an idiot anyway, why waste it all in one moment?

Edward's POV

It was late when we left the house, we being Alice, Emmet, Jasper, Rosalie, and I. Who talked Rosalie into going, I wasn't sure, but I think the reason she most came along for was that she was curious, or that was what her thoughts were telling me. We took my car; the ride was basically silent, with the exception of Emmet making odd speculations on what Bella had been doing in the past two centuries. Everyone for the most part ignored him, Rosalie telling him to stop talking more then once.

Alice and I had our own special silent exchange, her asking questions about my nervousness and if I knew what I would say among other things, me nodding or shaking my head subtly in response.

Arriving at Charlie's old house-- Bella's now I was sure --we parked in the street, a sleek purple motorcycle and a green Volkswagen taking up the driveway. The house had changed over the years, getting larger, trees on either side of it now, the two houses that had been on either side of it gone. Mostly it was how far back it went that had changed, it looked as if a room or two had been added on that way.

"Edward, are we going or not?" Rosalie questioned me irritably_. He's chickening out_. She thought smugly to herself. I rolled my eyes, not letting onto her that I had heard her thoughts. Instead I opened my door, getting out of the car and walking towards the front door of the house, not waiting for the rest of them. The moment I got to the front door though, they were all right behind me.

"Do you think we'll need to knock?" Alice asked curiously, tapping her lower lip. That question was answered quickly enough, with door opening before we chose whether or not to knock. The twins were in the doorway, Damien in front, Aurora half hidden behind him.

"The only way you would have to knock would be if you actually came quietly." Damien said. "Slamming car doors--"

"Practically yelling in your minds." Aurora added in a quiet murmur.

"--You weren't even out of the car we knew you were here." Damien said with a hard look on his face and a shrug. He moved out of the way, as did Aurora. "Come in then. I won't guarantee our mother will talk to you all at once, but I suppose we won't be left alone unless you get your chance to try and make her."

Rosalie POV

The way this boy acted, he had to be Edward's child, so sarcastic and lofty. Already I loathed him, nephew or not. I watched him as Emmet and I passed and he gave me a grim smile, his eyes dancing and his arms wrapped around Aurora's shoulders. It was harder to get any sense of that one. Her expression was dark and calm. I half pinned her as the kind of person to hide in the shadows rather than where everyone could get a clear impression of her.

Edward knew just where he was going; walking to what I guessed was the living room. This was the first time I had ever been here, though Edward and Alice were familiar with it, even after centuries had passed.

The door closed the second Jasper had entered the house, and the Aurora was sweeping past me in her silence, and though she was so quiet and shy, she stood straight, her head held high. She was a small, proud girl; she just hid it all with eyes that just pretended to study the ground and soft words.

"Bella's in the kitchen." she said quietly, looking at Edward and Alice, who both looked a bit confused not to find her in this room. Edward gave her a meaningful look, and her eyes met his. "I couldn't tell you." she said. "Her mind is a mess right now." now Aurora ducked her head as I looked between the two of them. Edward nodded slowly, the continued out of the room. Again I eyed Aurora.

Great, just what I wanted around, another mind reader.

Aurora's POV

Edward's thoughts were as much a mess as Bella's, really. But he knew that already, he didn't need me to point it out. I could feel eyes on me, and turning to look, I met the golden eyes of one of the blondes, the female. What was she being called in everyone else's mind? Rosalie. With her face I found the association of vanity, pride, and other tidbits. That was for Alice, Edward, and the other blonde, Jasper. Then there was the big one, Emmet. He would admit that Rosalie was all those things that everyone had in their mind about her, but he wasn't as annoyed by it as all the others. In fact, judging from his thoughts, if no one pointed her faults out, he wouldn't have noticed them most of the time, he loved her so much.

"Uh, I just wanted to say I'm sorry about earlier." my head snapped in the direction of my twin's voice. Damien, apologizing? That was a new one for me to hear. He was talking to Jasper and Alice, who did deserve an apology from him, though that usually meant nothing in Damien's eyes.

"You should take that apology." I said slowly to the two of them. And suddenly, everyone in the room; Damien, Alice, Rosalie, Jasper, Emmet-- were looking at me. My eyes found the ground as I spit out the rest of my quiet words. "Damien doesn't apologize usually, even when he's in the wrong. I've never received one from him." my fingers found the soft petals of the buttercup still woven into my hair. That was the best apology he could muster most of the time. His charm was what got him out of most messes really; I was surprised he wasn't trying to use it to get out of this mess.

Alice smiled and nodded. "We'll take it then." she said, speaking for both her and Jasper, without saying a word to the other.

With that the matter was over as quickly as it had come up, and Alice was dancing around our living room, examining everything, do her best in her head to compare it to what it had looked like two hundred years earlier. That was something interesting to see, I would admit.

"What's in here?" she asked curiously, coming to a stop in front of the large sized tank that was in the corner. I only saw this of course after I actually looked up. Damien walked over, as well as everyone else, and they all stood behind him as he took the cover off of the tank and reached into a big hallow log that was there as decoration, and as cover for his pet.

Pulling out the pet, he turned so they could see. "This is Nalin, he's my ball python." that was the oddly short story on Nalin, the one very few people were unable to get away with hearing. Usually they got how Nalin's specific breed was a leucistic ball python, which was why he was pure white with no patterns. And how, at almost five feet, Nalin was big for a ball python. Damien loved that snake; he had since he had gotten it three years earlier.

"Eeeee!" Rosalie screeched as Nalin looped around Damien's arm and extending his head toward, and she jumped away. Her family watched her, looking quite amused.

"Oh Rosalie, don't tell me you're afraid of snakes." Alice said, a wicked grin playing around her lips.

Rosalie tried to compose herself, rolling her eyes. "Of course I'm not afraid of them. That thing is just gross!"

"Lie." Damien said absently, running a finger down Nalin's scaly back. Rosalie turned a glare that screamed her want to smack him right then.

"I'm not lying." she said hostilely.

"Lie." Damien said more firmly.

"If Damien says it's a lie, it's a lie." I said softly. "It's what he can do. He knows when a lie is being told." Now Rosalie turned her eyes on me, her glare still there. I met it head on, not breaking my eyes from hers.

Emmet stepped forward, putting an arm around her. "Aw, Rose, don't take it so bad." he said, though that did little for her mood. She did look away from me though, which gave me opportunity to look down at my watch. It was one in the morning already. I could go out finally, since I had been waiting for it to be late enough.

"I'm leaving; I'll be back by morning." I said hurriedly. The four unfamiliar with me just watch, but Damien looked up, his eyebrows knitting together. "I'm fine Damien; it's just some stuff I want to do. Nothing is going to harm me this late at night. After all," I leaned in close to put my lips by my brother's ear. "We're the scary creatures of the night, remember?"

Damien smiled at the words I had made quiet enough for only him. He kissed my cheek. "By morning, Rory, or I'll go hunting after you." I smiled a small smile for him before I disappeared from the room, even though I could hear the many questions in the heads of the Cullens. Well, I couldn't let their arrival change what I had been planning for awhile.

The need to wait late to do this? I couldn't run into anyone else. After all, I wasn't sure how the treaty Bella had warned us about covered half vampires, and I didn't want to deal with it if I didn't have to.

I grabbed my helmet leaving the house. No one would be at La Push beach this late, and that was just what I needed, an empty beach, hopefully that would stop my constantly becoming more intense need to go there, because the feeling was becoming quite unnerving.

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**A/N**: Um, cliffhanger this time I suppose. That was a bit of a longer chapter. The next one you will see what happened between Edward and Bella andddddd what Aurora will get up to at the beach. Feel free to make guesses as to what might happen! I'll have the next chapter up soon, please REVIEW! It makes me work faster, I swear.


	8. Chapter Seven: Mysteries

**Disclaimer: **If it's not the plot or the new characters, I didn't make it, 'kay?

**Chapter Seven: Mysteries**

Bella's POV

I really should've expected the arrival of the Cullens. There was no way Edward would leave me alone until the next day. It had to be easy to figure out where we were living, he knew I would live in my old home if I had the choice any day. So when we heard their arrival, I left it to Aurora and Damien, not sure if I could look at most of the Cullen's at once without feeling sick. They couldn't all be happy I was back. Mostly I suspected that if anyone would dislike my return, it would be Rosalie, but I would never voice that out loud. No, it was just easier to wait for Edward to come to me.

In the kitchen, I was wiping off the counter of flour and sugar from Aurora's making cookies, and washing the now empty cookie sheet, seeing as their cookies were sitting on a plate in the middle of the table, four out of the two dozen my daughter had made already gone. Even as I heard people in the other room talking, I kept wiping at the counter, despite the fact that it was already clean now.

"Bella." there it was, the voice that I now realized I had been waiting anxiously to hear. No matter how much we had to go through to understand all this, it still felt good to hear his voice, though I couldn't admit that out loud.

Slowly I turned to look at him, taking deep, unneeded breath. "Edward." I said slowly, staring down at the ground. I couldn't look at him; it would hurt to see the look that I knew was in his eyes, the look of hurt confusion. There was a silence following my acknowledgement, which unnerved me more than anything he could possibly do. "Edward, if you have something to say or ask me, then talk." I forced out.

More silence followed before finally, "Will you look at me please, Bella?" He caught me off guard and I complied with his gentle request, my golden eyes meeting his. He was as I had always remembered, a face I wouldn't, couldn't forget. "It's really you." he murmured. He moved forward and I stepped back, my body pressing up against the counter. My hands gripped at the edge, I was trying to keep myself from sinking to the ground, since I was sure my legs would give out any second.

Edward stopped, a frown setting firmly on his face.

"I can't Edward." I murmured, blinking at my own words. When had I decided to say that?

"Bella, you left because you were scared, but now I know." he didn't get it, I could tell from his voice. He thought that now I was back, we could fall right back in love again. Believe me, I wanted nothing more than that, but I knew it could never be that simple. It just wasn't possible. There was so much time there, and we couldn't let what happen be left unsaid.

Before I knew it was shaking my head. "You don't know how much I want it to be that easy." my words were whispered, and my eyes were finding their way back to the ground. "Edward, I don't believe that you're just accepting this. And I can't be pulled into anything when I _know _that it won't last without questions and fights." This-- this hurt. I had to admit this to myself and Edward, and this was nothing I wanted to hear. "I _left _you, Edward. I never even gave you a chance to take my news. I assumed the worst was going to happen, and I can't believe that you're really okay with that."

"And if I am okay with everything? What if I just want to have you back? What if I just want to know my son and daughter?" his words came quick in reply to mine.

"You're not though, and that's not all you want." my voice was tired, another surprise to me.

"How do you know that, Bella?" his voice was becoming increasingly frustrated.

"I just do Edward!" I exclaimed. That was the only explanation I could come up with. Shouldn't it be obvious to Edward that I, of all people, would know when he was holding something back?

He was silent though, and I wondered slightly if he was done with me now, if he couldn't deal with it anymore. He opened his mouth, but closed it when a slight shriek, that I was sure belonged to Rosalie, rang out. Edward half turned, his eyebrows knitting together, but soon an amused smile played on his lips as he turned back to me. "Damien has a pet snake?" he asked.

For a moment, at the mention of the snake made me forget who I was talking to. "Yes, he loves that snake. It's the most unnatural thing I think I've ever encountered, a vampire keeping a pet." I rolled my eyes, then realized I was talking to Edward. Again my real voice was gone, replaced with uncertainty that had been there before.

Edward was moving; I could hear it, but I wouldn't look up. I knew he was coming closer, and if I were to look up, he would be right there, in front of me. I wasn't ready for that.

The movement stopped, and I felt cool fingers place themselves under my chin. I could've fought it, yes, but instead I let Edward make me look into his eyes. "Where did _that_ Bella go? I want to see and hear her again." he said, his voice steadier that I would ever be able to will mine to be.

"You can't Edward." I said softly.

"You're not going to tell me that she's gone, are you? I thought you were past clichés." a smile played around Edward's lips, and I didn't want to say it, but it was comforting. To him though, I showed a different feeling, pushing him away.

"Edward, you don't get it! This isn't a game!"

"I know it's not a game, Bella. But you have to explain this all to me, I won't understand any of it if you don't." Edward said, and I could tell from the way his voice strained that he couldn't stay calm.

Now that he was telling me to explain, I was finding myself at a loss for words. "I left you." I said dumbly. Great Bella, that was all you could come up with?

"Because you were afraid I wasn't going to accept you being pregnant." Well, at least he got some of it. "You went somewhere, found some vampire to change you." he added, this time he was fishing for the answer to who had changed me, that was obvious.

"I can't tell you about that Edward; it complicated." I said quickly, then tried to change the subject. "I was scared that I would put you and your family in more danger than I had already. Do you know how much attention would've been drawn to you all?"

Edward's reply was just a quick as my subject change. "We could've handled it."

"I'm sure--" I began, but someone cut me off from the doorway, Damien to specific.

"Mom." he had Nalin out still, the snake wrapping around his arm. "Aurora went out. She was acting weird." Damien was ignoring Edward quite plainly, looking around him so he could see me. "I'm worried about her."

Of course Damien would pick now to start worrying about his sister, after he had been the one to screw up her day with his anger. Did it even occur to him that there was the distinct possibility that she was going to act odd around him? This was no time to be doing this, and Damien knew it. I could see it in his eyes, his gaze was flat, even as it flicked to Edward for a moment then back to me.

Pushing hair from my face, I sighed. "What do you want me to do, Damien? She can take care of herself, and it's not like she'll take to it well if we go out following her."

Damien bit his lip, as if trying to stop himself from snapping out an answer. "You know something is wrong, Mom. Aurora's been ready to jump out of her skin for the past few weeks. The few times she ever sleeps, she's woken up either screaming or crying. This has nothing to do with just today. Are you really saying we can't do anything?"

He was right, she had been acting like that. When they slept, which was only needed once or twice a week, there wasn't an afternoon or night that hadn't gone by those times that didn't have her waking up so upset. Still, we couldn't do anything unless she told us to, and I was one of the people who wished so much that they could. "We can't. Aurora is as proud as you are, and you know it. And she's fragile. If we do one thing wrong, you know she won't talk to either of us for weeks." My answer wasn't liked much by my son, that was obvious. He didn't say anything as he left.

As I watched after him, Edward said something. "It was hard, wasn't it? Raising them."

I looked at him, shrugging. "It's still hard. They've been alive for centuries, but no one has ever treated them as if they were older than eighteen. They're all they have, but every so often, they need to separate. Whoever gets left behind doesn't handle it that well." I guess it was going to be Damien this time. Of course, when Aurora went through this independence thing every couple of decades, she never actually left us, like Damien had. She was just more closed off, she spent her more and more alone gradually, until it became that we saw her when she needed to come home to get ready for school, and maybe if she wanted to eat at home or hunt with us.

A sigh escaped from my lips, and I covered my face with my hands, closing my eyes. For one day having gone by, I suddenly had a lot on my plate.

Edward's moving again hadn't even captured my attention until I felt his arms encircle my body. I should've pushed him away, but I couldn't. "I can't do this yet, Edward." was the best I could do. I could clarify for him that I wasn't ready for us to pick up where we had left off.

"Fine, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let you go right now though." he said coolly, but I could picture the crooked smile on his face.

I laughed and nodded.

Aurora's POV

If I weren't forever cold already, being out this late at night in Forks probably would've left me freezing, especially as I got closer to first beach. There was no way I could expect to see the twinkling orange blue light of a bonfire far off at the other end of the beach from where I was parking now. I cursed under my breath, hearing the loud thoughts of the people around it. From what I could hear, it was three boys and a girl. If anyone else was there, they weren't yelling in their heads like the others.

There was no way I was leaving now though. Anyway, I only meant to spend fifteen minutes around here anyway. It was enough to just stay at the other end of the beach for those fifteen minutes. They would probably never even notice me. Holding onto my helmet and jingling my keys slightly, I walked down towards the shore. I'm not sure what I was looking for, but I sat a few yards away from the water, putting my things beside me. Pulling my knees up to my chest, I stared out at the water, which was only lit by the moon of course, and was pretty calm.

_Okay, I'm here, now what? _I thought to myself, wanting to yell up at the sky-- at whatever was giving me this pestering feeling that I to be here --that I couldn't magically know what I was supposed to be doing. No, I didn't do that. And there was no answer to my silent words, as much as I wanted there to be. I sighed and fell back onto the sand, my hands landing on my bare stomach as my shirt rode up slightly. I stared at the sky, with all of the stars making little pin holes in the sky. That's what Damien and I used to call them, but we hadn't sat out under the stars together in decades. We just stopped doing it one day really, there was no other reasoning behind it.

The wind blew over me, and my senses flared. Oh no, nonono. This was not going to happen. "I _don't want _a singer." I said aloud, sitting up before standing. Angrily I kicked off my slip-ons, walking closer to the water. I only stopped when the water washed over my feet. This was not why I was here. I wasn't here to find the person whose blood would sing for me. I wanted nothing to do with any such person. Taking a deep breath I walked further into the water, moving slowly until I was waist deep in water that would have anyone else's teeth chattering by now. Staying there for a moment, I tried to not look in the direction the wind was blowing from. It was easy enough to figure it was coming from those around the fire, but I didn't want to even imagine the face of whoever it was that was in more danger then they knew right then.

Taking a deep breath, I dove forward, submerging myself in the water. There was no way to wash the scent away, but I could pretend there was as much as I wanted to. So I dove to the bottom, fully clothed, though that didn't bother me so much my stomach brushed the bottom and I stayed under for much longer then would've been possible for any normal human. It had to have been at least ten minutes when I came up. I could've stayed under longer, but the salt water was beginning to sting my eyes.

Breaking the water, I flipped my hair out of my eyes, treading lightly. Wiping at my eyes, I tried to steady my breath enough to be able to breathe through my mouth and just avoid taking in any of the scents around me.

"Are you crazy?" a deep, raspy, yet oddly boyish voice asked out loud. I opened my eyes in surprise. What I saw was a boy, most likely the age I played, with shaggy black hair that fell to his shoulders, standing ankle deep in the water, arms crossed over his broad chest.

"What?" I asked dumbly, even though I knew perfectly well what he had said. I just hadn't been prepared for someone to be there in front of me.

"You're going to get hypothermia swimming in freezing water." he told me once more as another breeze rode past. This time the scent hit me much faster and harder, as if it were closer. Oh, no. No way in hell was this happening. This could not be the person, walking right into the wolf's den. Sucking in a deep breath, I submerged myself again. He would go away, he had to. I was just some random girl, what would I mean to him.

I did my best to stay close to the bottom. I'm not sure how long I was there, but it wasn't very long. There was a splash above me, and strong arms wrapped around me-- I was so surprised, I gasped, taking water into my mouth. I fought the arms, but they held onto me, dragging me to the surface.

Even when we hit the surface, I was still fighting the arms that were holding me bridal style while coughing up water. "Calm down!" the same voice exclaimed, and I fought harder. He had to put me down, didn't he get it! "Would you stop! You were under for too long, you could've drowned!"

"But I didn't drown." I insisted angrily, glaring up at him while he walked towards the shore, still holding me. He was so warm, it wasn't even like he was out in the cold night and had just doused himself in freezing water. Now he looked a bit taken aback as his eyes met mine. Like he wasn't ready for them.

_Imprinted_. Was the first thought that read out from his mind. Then there were flashed images of two sets of faces. One of each set was male and the other was female. After that there were flashes of wolves, a whole pack of them. That was when it clicked in my head, and I began struggling much harder. He was a_ wolf_. That was bad, and that was all I could think of even as I heard the excited voice in his head, tinged with exasperation_. This is the girl I've imprinted on_.

When we finally got to the land, he let me down and I tried to move away from him as fast as I could and still look human, but he held onto my shoulder. "Wait." he said, turning me to look at him. "God, you're freezing cold. C'mon, we have a fire going over there." he pointed in the direction of where I had seen the fire before. "You can warm up. What's your name?"

"I really just want to go home. Could you let go of me?" I pulled away harder then I needed to, and finally broke free of him, turning away and walking towards my things. I probably would've been completely done with him if I hadn't needed to stop and pull my shoes on.

"Look, my name is Harlen. Will you at least tell me your name?" Damn, he was fast. Of course, his legs were much longer than mine and covered more area then I could moving at human speed. He had to be over a foot taller than me, of course that was no surprise.

"I don't have a name." I mumbled, snatching up my helmet and keys and continuing towards my bike, putting on my helmet as I walked.

He followed me still talking. "Of course you have a name." he insisted as I got to my bike, getting on and sticking my key in the ignition. I probably shouldn't have looked up at him as I started up the bike, because the desperate look in his eyes made me speak without thinking.

"Aurora. My name is Aurora." I told him, revving my engine. A smile broke on his face, I caught a small glimpse of it and I steered my bike away, back towards Forks.

_What did I just do_? I asked myself as I rode. Telling him my name was a stupid move. He would do something with it, I was sure. Still, I was thinking of that smile I saw on his face, and I couldn't help but smile slightly to myself. I was not supposed to be doing this. And I couldn't do this. Yet none of these thoughts were stopping my small smile.

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**A/N: **Yes, that took me awhile to get out. But don't lose hope! The earliest my next chapter will be up is Tuesday, because anytime before then I'll be getting ready for and going on a camping trip. So any day Tuesday or later expect to see an update. They should become much more common soon after Prom, since I will be on summer vacation then! Anyways, review while you're waiting for the next chapter!


	9. Chapter Eight: Skipping

**Disclaimer: **I do not own zee true twilight plot or its characters. Only this plot and my characters.

**Chapter Eight: Skipping**

Damien's POV

No, I didn't like the idea of what my mother and Edward were talking about. About what they once were, what they could be again. I was smart enough to realize that was what they were going on about in the kitchen. I said nothing about that when I interrupted them though. I talked about Aurora and ignored Edward. He wasn't important here. _He _could never handle Aurora. Mom and I, on the other hand, could, if mom was actually willing to do anything. She was too distracted by Edward to even stop and think for a moment of if it really would be so bad if one of us went after Aurora.

I suppose it was a bit childish, the way I left in such a huff, but I didn't like it. I know that I had been looking over the years for my father, but that was before I knew Mom had been the one to leave. I hadn't been looking to have a father figure in my life. I had just been looking to have some sense of where I came from. And now I did, and now he didn't need to be around anymore. We were just fine as the three of us. Hadn't it already been proven that his arrival had caused enough problems? Just look at how Aurora had acted, how she was acting.

Putting Nalin back in his tank, I moved past the others, walking towards the back of the house. No, I didn't care so much about politeness, and I don't think they cared all that much either. I just moved to the most familiar room other than mine, one that I usually only went into when Aurora was in it, closing the glass door that separated it from the rest of the house. She was the musically inclined one. I was just… whatever I was. The more vampiric of the two of us, you could say. Speed, strength, heightened senses. Aurora had all of those, but it was below average of what a vampire had. And even though she showed more human than vampire in everything but beauty, she also was too far above human averages. At least I could be grouped more with one group then the other. She was stuck.

In this room was variety of things, all instrumental. A piano, which was rarely touched unless I sat in front of it, as I was now. Aurora's violin, which sat on a stand, a music stand beside it with sheets of handwritten music spread across it messily, stood across the room in a corner by itself, delicate and a bit fragile from years of use. The other instruments were of less importance, mostly because while Aurora and I would play them on occasion, they weren't all that important to us. The piano though, that was where I sat just then, in front of it. Lifting up the cover for the keys, I dragged my fingers over the keys slowly, pressing down only slightly. I adjusted myself on the bench and set both on the keys and finally began to play with real seriousness. I didn't think about what I was playing; only that it was a well known tune for me. My lips moved with words my sister had put to it when were ten, when we used to always request our mother hum us the lullaby. It had also been Aurora who had figured out what the notes would've been on violin, which translated to piano also since the instruments shared the same notes.

Where mom learned this lullaby, she never really told us, and we never really asked. It was something calming though, and it was impossible to forget.

"I know that song." a voice said from behind me. The first thing I saw when I turned in surprise was that the door had been opened, and that the two males, Jasper, and the other whose name I had not yet learned, were standing there. Then I noticed that standing closer was small Alice, a finger tapping her lips, a thoughtful look on her face.

"I'm sure a lot of people know it." I said, turning back to the keys, my long fingers pressing down on them to create the tune once more. Perhaps if I ignored her she would leave me be, along with the other two.

I was aware of all of them in the room as I played, and it wasn't long before Alice was talking again. "Edward wrote that for Bella." she said brightly now, as if she had remembered a fact that had been nagging at her for awhile. I stopped playing, turning once more to look at her. She folded her arms across her chest, smiling as if she had won some game. "When they were together, before she went off to…" she trailed off, looking at me. I knew what she was waiting to get out of me, and I really couldn't believe she was honestly trying to get that from me.

"Have two children and live her life with no interference from the rest of the world." I told her, my voice bitter. No one was giving into their tries to find out who made my mother into a vampire, didn't they get that?

Jasper spoke now, his words slow and thoughtful. "I don't understand. Aurora told Edward that you were looking for your father for years. You were angry that she had known all along who he was. And now you're so strongly resentful."

Where he thought it was his place to tell me how I was feeling? Every part of me that was ready for a fight told me to pounce. What little sense I seemed to have at the moment pointed out that he had been perfectly fine early with fighting. So I controlled my urge to jump at him and stayed seated, talking through gritted teeth. "I wanted to meet him so I could be sure I wouldn't turn out like him. So that I knew I would disappear when someone I was supposed to love needed me."

"But Bella left Edward." said the guy who's name I didn't know, as if he were piecing it all together.

"Now you're not sure of who you're not supposed to be like, Bella or Edward." Alice said, tilting her head to the side.

Without thinking about it, I growled, not liking that she was still talking like she knew how everything fit together. She didn't, she couldn't. Both Jasper and the one by the door stepped forward, both baring their teeth. Alice held out a hand, speaking calmly as always. "Jasper, Emmet, it's fine, he won't hurt me." she assured them. Emmet backed down grudgingly, while Jasper stayed in attack position. Understandable, I suppose. From the looks of it, he and Alice were linked; they were mates.

There were quick steps; my mother and Edward appeared in the doorway, moving past Jasper and Emmet to get further into the room. And behind them? The blonde Cullen, Rosalie.

"Damien, calm down, please." Bella said softly, moving the closest to me out of everyone in the room, only a foot away from me. She reached out a hand and touched my arm, but I jerked away. "You're acting like a child Damien." she sounded exasperated with me. Her eyes betrayed that feeling too, and I dropped my own to the ground. I could hear my mother sigh, and shift her feet where she stood as someone moved past her to stand in front of me. No, I didn't bother to look up. I knew all I would see was Edward's face, not really something I wanted to see right then. What I wanted to see wasn't going to happen though. The Cullens weren't just going to disappear, and I was sure of that.

"You know, I'm not here to force myself into your life." That made a bitter laugh escape from my lips. I stood, looking at Edward and my mother, ignoring the others in the room.

I shook my head. "No." I said simply. "We are not having this turn into some family soap opera thing, no matter how much you want it to be like that." I told them. "And you're lying more then you could ever know." I said directly to Edward through gritted teeth. "From the moment you saw Bella, you had every intention to try and make your way back into her life, I don't need to be a mind reader like Rory to know that. And to push your way into Bella's life _is _to push your way into my life, and my sister's." I was done. I couldn't stay in there anymore. Without another word or look to anyone in the room, I moved first past Edward and Bella, neither stopping me. Alice stood in my way for a moment though, watching me through curious eyes.

Finally she moved out of my way, and I left the room without anyone else stopping me. Walking back to the front of the house, I was about to walk up the stairs until I heard the quiet purr that was my sister's motorcycle hit my ears. I paused, waiting at the bottom step, watching the front door. It was only a short moment until Aurora came through the door, her face hidden by the helmet she was still wearing. What wasn't hidden? The fact that her clothes were soaking wet, and clung to her small frame. It wasn't raining out, so what the hell…?

"Jesus Christ Rory, where the hell did you go?" I asked her, moving closer as she pulled off her helmet and her fell over her shoulders and down her back, just as wet as the rest of her. She looked up at me, looking a bit surprised that I was there. And, she gave me no answer either. Then I noticed the strange smell that accompanied her, it was familiar because it ran all over Forks sometimes, especially at the La Push border. She smelled like wolf…

"Rory, did you go to La Push?" I asked her, blinking in surprise that I was even asking her the question. I held out my arm to stop her as she moved to go past me, but that didn't stop her, she plowed right past me, turning me halfway to get through. "Aurora!" I called after her as she ran up the stairs, refusing to stop at my words. I followed after her, reaching the door to her room just before she shut it. I put my hand out, stopping the door from closing in my face. Aurora looked helpless as she watched me through guarded eyes. "Rory, did you go to La Push?" I asked her again, my words slow as dropped my hand from the door.

She was silent for a moment, her light green eyes locking onto mine. "No." she said calmly, before closing the door. I stood there, not sure of what to do.

This was different from Rory hiding something from me, not bothering to hand off information she had.

For the first time in our lives, my sister was lying to me.

Aurora's POV

I knew that Damien had to know I was lying, but I didn't care. All I could think about was collapsing in my bed and falling asleep, which was what I did.

When I woke up, it wasn't with tears or screams, like it had been for the past few weeks. It felt almost like my mind was at peace, that it was done nagging me, giving me nightmares until I did what it wanted me to. When I woke up in the morning, it was from a light knocking on my door. "Aurora? It's time to get up." Bella. Where Damien was, I didn't know. On the nights that I actually slept, he was usually the one that awoke me, not Bella.

"I'm up." I mumbled, sitting up, pushing my hair out of my eyes. The knocking stopped. I really didn't need to raise my voice for Bella to hear me. Heightened vampire senses and all. As I heard her steps going away from my room, I got out of bed.

It only took me twenty minutes to shower and get dressed and pull a brush through my knotted hair, struggling to make it fall into place. I sighed, settling for putting it in a long braid that fell over my shoulder. Now the only thing I couldn't find? The keys to my bike. Both sets of them. The night before I had left my normal keychain on my vanity table, and that was gone. The second key I kept on the bike itself and it was gone also. I walked back towards the house, while Bella and Damien were leaving it. "Do you know where my keys are?" asked them.

Almost immediately, Damien began to divide large numbers in his head, his voice absent as he spoke to me. "You don't need them, your riding with us today." he held out my backpack for me to take. I just looked at him for a moment, wonder if this was an argument I really wanted to have with my twin. He was making it quite hard to put his anger from the day before behind me when he was going to act like this.

In the end though, it really wasn't worth it to try and make him hand over my keys-- which I knew he had stashed somewhere so he could force this on me --and I took my bag from, moving towards his car. "Fine." I muttered under my breath. I opened the passenger side door, getting in and slamming the door after me.

"Hey!" Damien exclaimed as he got into the driver's seat and Bella got into the back. "I know you're not all that used to car doors with your motorcycle, but could you be nice to my poor car?" he asked me patiently as he started the car and quickly pulled out of the driveway and zoomed down the road. I ignored him, my eyes focused on the scenery zooming by my window. "I didn't start this Rory." Damien told me through gritted teeth. I could hear Bella in the backseat scolding him both out loud and in her head_. You lied to me Rory. Right to my face._

"Is there any other way to lie?" I asked him calmly, still looking out the window.

"Aurora." Bella warned. I looked over my shoulder at her in the backseat, and she looked back through pleading eyes_. Please don't push it, honey_. She requested in her mind. For Bella, I wouldn't argue. Only because dealing with Damien and I got to be a handful, and I knew it. Instead I decided to stay quiet the rest of the ride, and when the car finally came to a stop in a space in the parking lot, I jumped out, hurrying away from the car. I heard Bella stop Damien from following me, telling him something. I would've listened more intently to what she was saying, but I got distracted.

Distracted by the breeze blowing a flurry of scents that no longer bothered me. And then… there it was again. My nostrils flared at the delicious smell, my throat burned, aching for the blood it knew had to be close. Was that idiot really here? Didn't his wolf senses scream at him to hate me? Weren't they supposed to make him want to destroy me?

_Imprinted_. That's what he had thought when he saw me. When he looked as if I had changed everything for him. What was imprinting? I didn't know enough about wolves to know that. I knew the stories my mother had told me, when we first moved to Forks, after she had given Damien and I the warning to stay away from La Push. She told us about the treaty. Hazy images had flashed through her mind as she talked about, images of the last time she had been in Forks, centuries before. They had been so unclear, as human memories were for vampires. I don't know why I did it, but when Damien had fallen asleep while we were watching a movie one night soon after we had moved her, I asked about her memories of the wolves from when she was human, I asked about the legends of the Quileute shape-shifters. And she had told me. What she could remember. And the fragments of the legends that she had been able to remember? The word 'Imprint' hadn't come up at all.

My throat burned more as the scent got closer; more intense. A growl began to build in me; I had to stop moving so I could get control of myself. I closed my eyes and held my breath, stopping the flow of the scent into my system. It eased the burning in my throat slightly, but my body still wanted to react to the remains of the smell in my system. My muscles wanted to coil, they wanted me to spring.

And then there was a noise that made me jump. I hadn't even the car come up beside me. I jumped when a voice interrupted me struggle to grow calm. "Hey Aurora."

It was him again; I didn't even have to look to know. "Are you okay?" his voice was concerned, but why? He didn't even know who I was. All he had was a name. I caught flashes of his thoughts as he watched me from the car he sat in. He was ready to jump out his skin like I was, but it was from watching me. He was actually_ worried_ about me. His thoughts were so mixed up though; I couldn't pull the reason for why he was so worried without putting all my concentration into it. And currently, my concentration was somewhere else.

I licked my lips, and forced myself to take a controlled breath. Slowly-- that was the key. I could make myself tolerate it. I had grown up living on animal blood while nearly every other vampire around me massacred who knows how many groups of poor unsuspecting humans. I had withstood the smell of all that human blood for decades, I could withstand this. With a lot of control. It would only take me a few moments to make him leave. He didn't go to school here, he had no place here.

I turned to look at Harlen in his car-- it was old, looked like it was about to break down at anytime --he looked as if I were the only thing around right at that moment. "I'm fine, what are_ you_ doing_ here_?" I said pointedly, still doing my best to keep my breathing steady and slow.

He smiled; I couldn't help but notice the dimples that accompanied his slightly crooked smile. "Well, I know you don't live on the rez, so you had to live in Forks, and there's only one high school here." he was so sure of himself, arrogant, yet sincere with every word her spoke to me.

"I mean why me? What it is your issue, why are you showing up here, in front of_ me_?" I questioned, slowly pushing the thought of the burning in my throat to the back of my head. I couldn't forget it, but I was gaining my control over it. Now, if anyone so much as brushed me as they walked, I was sure I would attack, but beyond that, I was handling it.

Harlen's POV

Honestly? I didn't know what was running through my thick skull, or why I was doing this. Because I wanted to be near her, Aurora. Every little part of me wanted to know her. It was imprinting, it made it so clear how she was my soul mate, and it was so easy to see her as my world. It hurt to see her look like she was struggling with something that was hurting her, and all I wanted to do was to protect her from it.

When she asked why I was there, in front of her, I answered quickly, hopefully. "Come with me and I'll tell you."

Her laugh was bitter; strained. Her words were quiet and musical, though every sound that came from her right then sounded so carefully controlled. "Are you insane? I'm not just going to go with some--" she was cut off, a few things happening all at once. Aurora snapped to attention, looking away as several voices sounded. I looked to see what had caught her attention, and it looked to be a few different people.

"Jasper? Jasper, what's wrong?" A small pixie like girl was asking a blonde guy. Examining them, I had to hold back a growl, since it was pretty clear to me what they were.

"…empathy. The thirst." I could hear Aurora murmur, a hand moving to her lips as she began to bite her nails. She was watching those two so carefully, looking as if she was willing something to happen. What, I don't know.

The second thing to happen seemed to send a shock through Aurora. "Rory!" a voice called. She jumped and snapped to attention, watching a tall, bronze haired, green eyed guy as he came closer to us. "Hey, you! Leave her alone!" That was clearly aimed at me, but why did I have to listen to him? I don't know what the feeling that watched over me was at his being so familiar with Aurora. Jealousy?

Aurora took a deep breath as she looked at him, she looked shaken actually. And then she did something I didn't expect her to do at all. She had just been so against coming with me, but now she was hurrying around the side of the car, getting in and slamming the door after me. "Drive." she commanded with a cover of calm, even though there was a tinge of nervousness in her voice. I only looked at her for a moment before I did what she told me.

After all, part of imprinting was giving the object of your imprinting anything they wanted.

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**A/N:** Well, there you go. After the summer of being gone, I return. Eh, sorry about that. Life got in the way, like it always does. Anyway, I know Breaking Dawn came out, and I've read it, and I'm gonna keep going with this story, because I feel like it, and because it's fun. For the purpose of this fiction, BD never happened, and a lot of Eclipse didn't either. So that's that. Anyway, if updates are slow, it's because I am dealing with life, and honestly, writing fan fiction is often pushed to the bottom of my list of things to do. Now, review! Next chapter? More about Edward and Bella, Damien, and maybe what Harlen and Aurora get up to.


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